Stories for "cosmology"

Allan Adams “became a physicist to understand how the world works at its most fundamental level.” Adams, a professor of theoretical physics at MIT, points out that the things we’ve learned so far are pretty incredible: We know the universe began just 13.8 billion years ago, and have a pretty good idea how it’s going […]

In a surprise talk tonight, Allan Adams took the stage to explain a remarkable discovery announced just yesterday. And since he’s here and is amazing, Randall Munroe of xkcd illustrated the talk. As Adams tells us, if you look into the night sky, you see stars … and if you look further, you see more stars. […]

Physicist Brian Green promises he will tell the audience at TED 2014 the whole history of the universe in four minutes. “Forgive me,” he says, “if I leave out a detail here or there.” He does it with two metaphors. One from the beginning till now, and another from now till the end. The universe […]

TED Fellow Renée Hlozek — currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Astrophysics at Princeton University — recently established a fund and mentoring program to bring young South African female science undergraduates to the US for summer research. The mentorship’s first recipient, Julia Healy, just completed four weeks working alongside Hlozek at Princeton. […]

Particle physics. To some, the words may produce anxiety. And while, yes, it is complicated — it is far from incomprehensible. On May 3, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, better known as CERN, held its first TEDx event, an illuminating look at how particle physics intersects with other disciplines. As part of TEDxCERN, physicists […]

It’s just a teeny, tiny question: How did the universe begin? Today, TED-Ed has unveiled a new lesson that answers this in less than four minutes, “The beginning of the universe, for beginners.” This is the first of five animated lessons developed by CERN scientists and brought to life by TED-Ed’s talented animators. The other […]

Today—March 21, 2013—the much-anticipated cosmological results from the Planck satellite have been released. In a recent blog post on her own website, TED Fellow and cosmologist Renée Hlozek describes why this is a big day for astrophysics and cosmology. We asked her to explain what the excitement is all about. “Planck is the ‘next generation’ satellite that measures the tiny fluctuations in […]

Huddle around the radio, all. TED Radio Hour’s second season is under way and episode two, “Peering into Space” premieres today. Host Guy Raz says that this episode may even be his favorite created so far. In an interview with the TED Blog, he said, “It totally changed my world … I think people who […]

CERN particle physicist Bilge Demirköz investigates everything from dark matter to the possibility of antigalaxies, trying to understand what we — and the universe — are made of. What is it about space and the investigation of dark matter and antimatter that captures your imagination? Well to me, the question is, Why are we here? […]